that is it for us tonight and a programming note, anderson cooper hosting a special town hall on gun control this thursday night. and and der and anderson starts now coast and tonight, terror inside of a packed nightclub within minutes became a death trap. hundreds of people trapped in the inferno and some trampled in the panic, and hundreds died and arrests have been made. we will tell you who is responsible and what is happening. and we will talk about the norovirus, and the super stomach bug and updates. we begin as we do every night, looking at facts.

our goal is just real reporting, finding the truth and calling out hypocrisy. now today they formulated a sweeping plan that would give immigrants a path to citizenship without first sending them home and seemed to send it. . president obama calls it a top priority for his second term. here's what senator john mccain, one of the senators, said yesterday. >> look at the last election. look at the last election. we are losing dramatically the hispanic vote which we believe should be ours for a variety of reasons, and we've got to understand that. second of all, we can't go on forever with 11 million people living in the shadows in illegal status. >> and senator mccain is talking about what some republicans call the 27% problem, and president obama won strong support from latinos to mitt romney's 27%.

and romney's poor showing among the latinos is part of a growing trend. and republicans have been steadily lose agreeing share of the latino vote which is in 2012 romney with 27% down from mccain's 31% from 2008 and george w. bushes in 2004. it's an urgent call for republicans, so considering all that what's probably the most interesting thing about today's announcement was how much it looked like earlier efforts of immigration reform, with the main sticking point being the "a" word, amnesty. >> i have not and will not support any blanket amnesty. >> i don't support amnesty. i don't support special benefits. >> essentially granting amnesty to many illegals is outrageous. >> and amnesty, and many of them need to be sent back. >> you will notice that ending with senator mccain which is

interesting, because before he would support it. he was against it there, but before that he was for it. in 2005, he worked the late senator ted kennedy on an immigration bill that was backed by the bush white house and included what critics called amnesty, only then, mccain and others weren't calling it that. >> i think we're off to a good start on immigration reform. >> i'm not running to do the easy things, so i defend with no reservation our proposal to offer the people who harvest our crops, tend our gardens, work in our restaurants, care for our children, and clean our homes a chance to be lool citizens of this country. on the issue of illegal immigration a position which -- which -- a position which

obviously still provokes the outspoken opposition of many conservatives, i stood my ground aware that my position would imperil my campaign. at a moment of great difficulty in my campaign when my critics said it would be political suicide for me to do so, i helped author with senator kennedy comprehensive immigration reform. >> well, that bill ultimately collapsed in the snachlt fast forward to january 2013, and senator mccain right back where he started and he said himself, look no further than the last election and his party feels they have to change things up after cnn polling shows that more than half americans say that allowing the illegal immigrants to be american citizens should be policy. all of this a day before president obama is set to lay out his plan on immigration proposal in nevada. here to talk about it is gloria borger, and cornell belcher, and

political contributor and republican consultant margaret hoover. gloria, let me start with you. what is so different this time around for the republicans? simply the reality of november's election? >> yeah, they are worried about their own survival as a political party. one way to survive as a party is to broaden your base and not remain hostage to a single part of it. and i think that has been the problem for the republican party when you talk about john mccain. when john mccain was challenged from the right in 2010, when he was running for re-election to the senate, he became much more conservative on immigration policy. now i think he's sort of unshackled and he's back to the position he was in in 2005 and 2007. i mean, you know, i spent a lot of time with him on that straight talk express when he was running for the presidency in 2007. and i remember him telling me that he was stunned at the vitriolic reaction within his own party to immigration.

now it's about survival. so that's why you see them getting together with the democrats. >> cornell, this is how senator menendez explained this by partisan push yesterday. he said first of all, there was this one, in poll after poll, latinos wanted it, and democrats want it, and republicans need it. does that sum it up in. >> well, it sums it up. in some of the clips that you showed, showed the delusional misthinking that was put forth and the strategy that came out of the last presidential election where they thought that the election towould be less diverse as opposed to more diverse. this last election was a wake-up call saying that the electorate is not less diverse, but more diverse. and more and more latinos entering the voting age and identifying with the democratic party, and long-term as a strategy, their position around illegal immigration is not

tenable when you look at states like colorado and nevada being key battleground states moving forward. >>, sore . >> so, margaret, from a republican standpoint, how do you convince the latino voters that you is had a change of heart on the immigration issue, and not some political calculation. >> well, opportunistic and seizing the moment. look. it would be much less convincing if the republicans didn't have a strong history of fighting for this. i was in george bush's administration when we put the serious reforms on the table and tried very much to get it through. and we lost the right flank and missed democrats who were not willing to leave george bush a legacy piece. what is key today is that this is a bipartisan congressional effort and it was congress to get in front of the president, because if this is too identified with the president, the president is a polarizing guy and these are polarizing time. it can't be obama's immigration package. it has to be the partisan from the beginning and then we stand

a chance because nothing has changed since 2007. i call them bibles, badges, and businesses. you have the community that is largely hispanic, and the badges of the full law enforcement community and the churches. >> do you think that he will back away from it? >> one of the reasons that the white house is waiting because first of all these people seem to be kind of doing well on their own. it's sort of the opposite of health care. nobody wants the white house to present a bill now. lots of people wanted him to present a bill on health care and he didn't. now that they're working together, why spook republicans? you know, just sit back. the white house is ready to pounce at any given moment if this all fa falls apart because the democrats really want to push immigration reform because, quite frankly, it's in their own self-interest to do so.

and so the white house right now, the strategy is to sit back and let the folks try to work this out and don't spook the rupps and if they don't, take over. >> but i do think that there is -- if i could jump in -- there is a little bit of the evil word triangulation going on. because listen to mccain and some of the other senate members talk tact bi-partisan in the senate. i think they see that congress is less poplar pop you lar than a root canal and there is try an gu lags going on with the folks in the senate versus that going on in the house. so i think that there is some triangulation going on even among the democrats and the republicans on the democratic and the senate side and this is remarkable that you have not seen it before, democratic and republican senators speaking from the same set of talking points around immigration talking about a fair but tough pathway and you never see democrats and republicans talking from the same talking point. >> and cornell, we did not hear much from president obama in the first two years he was in office, and they had democrats in congress. >> well, you know, a little

context here on this. we had this thing called great economic sort of recession and we were in a nosedive. i think the president was focused on pushing a stimulus package through the pulling the country out of the economic nosedive, so i give him a little slack for not getting it done in the first four years. >> well, anderson, i have to say that we -- this could fall apart. i mean, you know, there are a lot of holes to be filled in here if you look at this proposal, because it is not legislation. and you know, citizenship is contingent upon enforcement, and that is a big thing as far as republicans are concerned. well, how do you in the end say, okay, our borders are enforced and therefore we can establish a pathway to citizenship. so it ain't over yet. >> and it's not -- there's this sort of notion of how are you going to get republicans on board. mainstream republicans have been for some kind of comprehensive

immigration reform for some time. it with us the right flank of the party that derailed it last time. you've got people like jeff -- >> well, everybody running on the republican side were on the same page on this, and we have not heard from the other republicans. >> well, this new wave is interesting, because jeff flake was in favor of jan brewer's controversial law, and in favor of these principles. and sean hannity and the right wing radio folks are saying let's hear what marco rubio has to say, so you do have a chance to get it done. >> well, margaret, when you talk about the house republicans with the tea party caucus, they control what speaker boehner is going to do and you had representative lamar smith coming out calling it amnesty. i think they've got a long way go in the house. >> i wouldn't have let the right wing nuts define the party. they may say, you will get -- >> well, that is interesting. >> and paul ryan is trying to pass a bill, and paul ryan voted

not to go over the fiscal cliff, and paul ryan is probably running for president, and he sees the writing on the wall, and that is why he wants a deal on immigration reform. >> well, gloria borger, cornell belcher and margaret hoover, thank you. just ahead, describing really new details about the deadly fight club fire in brazil. more than 200 people died. the club was filled twice the capacity. imagine being stuck inside. police have made arrests. eyewitnesss are describing the building as it went up in flames. and it is hard enough to imagine any mother who has lost any child to violence, but we will speak to a woman who has lost all four of her children gunned down in the chicago streets.

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they'll get straightforward guidance and be able to focus on other things, like each other, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade. arrests in brazil following that deadly nightclub fire in santa maria. at least 231 people died as flames quickly engulfed this nightclub. the fire may have started by pyrotechnics used by the band playing on the stage at the time. today is the first day of an official three-day mourning period in brazil. it was marked by dozens of funerals in the town of santa maria, and here is a look at how quickly a night of fun turned into an unimaginable tragedy for so many people. at 2:30 a.m. on sunday morning,

the kiss nightclub in santa maria is jammed with young people. a band has been performing for about 20 minutes, finishing off one of its songs with a pyrotechnics show, shooting sparks into the air. the acoustic foam insulation on the ceiling catching fire and quickly spreads. as hot glowing embers start to fall the partygoers realize something is going wrong. a stampede breaks out. the club is packed to nearly twice its legal capacity. some 2,000 revelers in their late teens and twenties, according to state officials. but there's only one exit, down a dark, narrow hallway that is soon jammed with people trying to escape and quickly filling up with smoke. people fall to the ground and are trampled. security guards at first block the exit. >> translator: when i was trying to get out, the staff stopped me, and i yelled fire, fire! but the security guards were not realizing what was going on.

i think that many of them thought they were riots or people just trying to get out without paying. >> the crowd panicked and finally pushes past the guards just as parts of the roof begins to collapse, but now the building is split with hundreds still trapped inside. some clubgoers end up in the bathrooms, perhaps looking for another way to get out. eyewitnesses outside the club say they hear screams of people trying to escape the building. volunteers with sticks and bats try to break through the nightclub's thick walls, a desperate attempt to help. survivors of the fire say once they were outside, they went back to the jammed entrance to try to pull people to safety. some say they pulled people out by their hair. in the end, 231 people are dead. most by smoke inhalation. some were trampled. a guard says it took just two minutes for the fire to spread to the entire club. of the survivors, hundreds were injured and taken to the local hospital. authorities say piles of bodies were found inside the bathrooms. eyewitnesses call it a scene

from a horror film. by daylight, hospitals in santa maria were packed with people looking for family members among the survivors. and a makeshift morgue was set up to identify the bodies. rescue workers said that the sounds of ringing cell phones from the deceased echoed in the air with one cell phone showing a hundred missed calls. shasta darlington is in santa maria at the scene. what can you tell us about the arrests so far? >> today, they announced this is the big news today. the four arrests. two of the people are owners of this club where this huge inferno took place, and the other two people were actually members of the band that were playing and that put on a big pyrotechnics show when the fire started. so it's pretty clear this is the direction the investigation is going. they want to take a look at the evacuation precautions set up at the club, whether or not the people could get in and out safely, and also what caused the fire. was it the pyrotechnics show as so many people speculated?

>> so i mean at this point it seems that not even basic safety precautions were in place, right? >> no, it doesn't seem like there were any basic safety precautions, anderson. the fire extin gerber that the band tried to use to put out the fire on the ceiling, it didn't work. there was one exit in and out. the place was way over capacity. there was only one way in and out. there were no fire escapes. even when people tried to escape when the fire first started raging, the body guards at the very entrance pushed them away, thinking people were just trying to get out of the building without paying. so clearly, there are a lot of regulations violated here. >> shas the f . >> shasta, do you think more people are going to be arrested? do some of these security guards that wouldn't let me out, or is that just considered an accident? >> reporter: it's definitely a tough call.

even some of the survivors have said they were standing at the door and at first, the security guards thought they were just trying to get out without paying their bill. here in brazil, when you go to these nightclubs, you get a ticket at the door, and with each drink, they give you a little point. you only pay at the end. they say it wouldn't be the first time that fights broke out at this club and they tried to get out without paying. so i don't know how much they'll be held responsible. it might be a bigger picture, what was the club doing to set up an establishment that was safe in these kind of emergency situations. >> so, matt, i understand it's a pretty small city, a college town. what kind of impact has this had there? >> reporter: you can't underestimate the impact here, anderson. right now i'm in a crowd of several thousand people starting to march down the street towards that kiss nightclub, and chants are starting right now. everybody that you ask in this town knows somebody or knows of somebody who was either in the nightclub or killed. all along this boulevard here, we saw people crying, hugging each other, holding onto each other. it seems that in this town of about 250,000, no one has escaped the impact. it is also a town of innocence.

this is a college town. people were celebrating the commencement of the school year. some were graduating. that's what the people were there for, to celebrate, not to die. that's what has hit so hard in this town. it's really impossible to underestimate. >> such a horrible unthinkable thing. i appreciate it. matt gut man and shasta darlington, thank you so much. >> we'll continue to follow that. you can read more about the deadly nightclub fire and what caused it on cnn.com. up next, one mother's battle against guns. she has lost all four of her children to gun violence. the latest this past weekend. what she has to say about the push to change gun laws. plus, reports of a monkey in space and back on planet earth and why the state department is concerned coming up.

and why the state department is

there's a nasty virus sweeping the country. it's called the norovirus. it's very contagious. i'll talk to dr. sanjay gupta about why this bug is so hard to contain and what if anything you can do to keep from getting it, ahead.

welcome back. president obama and vice president biden met with police chiefs and sheriffs at the white house today to discuss ways to curb gun violence. the white house is pushing congress to approve an assault weapons ban in a step that they hope will avoid other mass shootings. the police chiefs of aurora, colorado, and newtown, connecticut, and oak creek, wisconsin, who have faced deadly shooting sprees were there at the meeting. also there, the police chief of chicago where too many people are dying due to gun violence. there were more than 500 homicides in chicago last year, and that's up more than 30% from the year before. so far this year, 40 deaths, and we're not even out of january yet. just this weekend, nine people were killed in shootings across the country. among them, a 33-year-old man. his mom is mourning his loss tonight, and she knows the pain all too well. this is her fourth child to die due to gun violence. she spoke to our ted roland. here's his report. >> it's hard. it's very hard. i don't want no mother, no

father to ever go through this, ever. >> reporter: this is how shirley chambers likes to remember her children, four happy kids and a mother beyond proud. then in 1995, she began losing them one by one. not to disease, not to car accidents, but to gun violence, all right in her own neighborhood. carlos was first, then 18 years old, it happened after an argument with a friend at school. >> next day, he came back and he shot carlos on the street. >> reporter: five years later in april of 2000, it was shirley's 15-year-old latoya, shirley's only daughter. >> she was beautiful. she just -- she had it all. she was my baby. yeah. latoya. >> reporter: latoya was accidentally shot by a 13-year-old who had somehow gotten ahold of a gun. >> he was trying to shoot someone else and he shot -- he hit latoya. >> reporter: then three months after latoya was killed, shirley's oldest son jerome was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting.

>> jerome was 23 when he got killed. >> reporter: at that point, all she had left was ronnie. they stuck together for more than a decade, pulling each other through the tough times, and then last weekend in front of this tree on chicago's near southwest side, he, too, was killed. gunned down while sitting in a car. ronny was 33. he had been living with shirley, which is the way she wanted it. >> i wanted to keep him close because he was the only one left. >> he didn't ask nobody for nothing. >> reporter: laverne smith has known the chamber family all her life and describes shirley as a good mother. >> let me tell you something. that woman was the best mother out there. that woman did everything in the world for her children. it is not her. it's the people out here. >> reporter: do you feel guilt? >> i don't feel no guilt at all because i did everything i possibly could for ronnie. i was there for him, and i did anything for him and he knew he could depend on he me and come to me for anything. >> reporter: shirley says that stronger sentences for people who commit gun violence, and in her community, she says that people who witness shootings should tell police what they

know. >> they're going to be in the same situation one day and you're going to want somebody to talk up for you, so you need to say something. they got to do something. they got to do something. this is crazy. this is getting out of hand. >> ted rowlands, cnn, chicago. >> what should be done? that's the focus of our town hall discussion this thursday. we'll have representatives of all sides of the debate. i hope you join us for that. a lot more happening tonight. isha is here with the "360 news and business bulletin." >> nearly three months after superstorm sandy slammed into the northeast, today, the u.s. senate approved more than $50 billion in aid for victims of the storm. the bill got caught up in bipartisan fighting for weeks. small businesses whose doors are still closed but who must reopen. >> 90 days ard sandy struck and today we finally struck back. the passage of this bill will mean money for homeowners who

lost everything and need to rebuild. small businesses whose doors are still closed but who must reopen, and protections for our coastlines and vital infrastructures to make sure that the next time a strong storm strikes, we're not hit that hard. >> israel's prime minister ariel sharon is showing brain activity when family members speak to him even though he's been comatose for seven years. that's according to doctors treating the 84-year-old. medical experts warn it's not proof he will wake up or that he's conscious of sounds. a change in the netherlands. the queen announced she would abdicate her throne in april to her son, prince william alexander. the 75-year-old queen has reigned for 33 years. and iran has said it has successfully launched a monkey

into space. and the u.s. department says they have no way of confirming the report but if it is true, it means that iran has developed long-range ballistic missiles. just for the record, the u.s. was the first to launch a monkey into space. the united states launched this little guy, sam, into space in 1961. there you have it. anderson? >> thanks very much. you probably heard the waernings about this year's flu outbreak reaching epidemic proportions. now there's concerns about the spread of the norovirus. if you don't know what it is, believe me, you do not want to get it. dr. sanjay gupta joins me with how easy it is to spread and how to avoid it. and also, a former member of warren jeffs' polygamist sect tells us how she left and got her children out as well. joeoo

rising floodwaters force a mott to take desperate measures to save her young child. the story behind that dramatic video ahead. specializing in fish and game from the great northwest.

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"up close" tonight, a surprising new look at life inside the fundamentalist church of latter day saints. it's a polygamist sect run by warren jeffs.

now, we've reported on the reclusive community before many times. they revere jeffs as a prophet even though he is sitting behind bars for sexually assaulting some of his sect's youngest members. jebs is also jeffs is also accused of forcing younger members. rudy was a child bride and her story of leaving the church is something we have rarely seen. gary tuchman spoke with her and went back inside the flds community to see what jeffs' followers have to say. >> reporter: 26-year-old rudy jessop has accomplished something that very few women in warren jeffs' fundamentalist polygamist church have done, late last week she escaped. how old were you when you got married? >> 14. >> how old were you when you had your first baby? >> i was 16. >> and ruby escaped with those babies, six of them. babies she had with a husband that is still in the church. the children are now 10, 8, 7, 6, 4, and 2.

>> reporter: do you still believe that warren jeffs is the prophet? >> no. >> reporter: warren jeffs, the self-professed prophet of the flds since 2002 is now serving a life sentence in prison, but he continues to rule with an iron fist from his cell. he made many of the laws here, and forced many countless young girls into marriage like ruby. most never leave, but ruby said she always dreamed of leaving. hoping to get out of the twin towns of colorado city, arizona, and hilldale, utah, where most flds members live. but taking children away from a husband who is obedient to the church and warren jeffs is extraordinarily difficult. just days ago, this was the emotional scene. ruby receiving temporary custody of the children from a county court judge. these pictures show ruby being reunited with her children after this man, her husband, had allegedly kept them away from her for weeks. >> arizona law is very clear that one parent cannot keep another parent from their children regardless of their religious. >> ruby then took her children and escaped into the outside world.

author and private investigator sam brouwer shot the photographs. >> the children were ecstatic to see their mother. they were all smiles. it was wonderful to see the looks on their faces when they saw their mom. >> reporter: ruby jessop was raised by her father, mother and two sister wives. she has 30 brothers and sisters. the man she was forced to marry is her second cousin. the man who presided over the wedding is warren jeffs. when she went to the alter, ruby was in ninth grade. she never went back to school. ruby is filing for divorce from harley barlow, a man she says she never loved. we went to the house they shared to try to get her husband's response to all this. mr. barlow? everybody who is loyal to warren jeffs puts above their doors, "zion." it shows they're still devoted. we weren't able to find him. i just want to ask you if you know haven barlow. but we talked to his neighbor who said he's a fine father.

as far as ruby goes, he's not so fond of her. she says she doesn't believe that warren jeffs is the prophet anymore. how does it make a man like you, who believes he is, feel? >> she's full of crap. she knows he is. >> i'm sure that if i went back to the community, i would not be welcomed. >> reporter: how does that make you feel? >> in a way, really good. in a way, i'm very sad. >> reporter: ruby's mother is still there and so are almost all of her siblings, but her sister, flora, left the church many years ago and has been working for years to get ruby out. >> i am just in awe that i have her. the most amazing thing in this whole world. >> reporter: the county investigator who has devoted years to try and help people who want to leave the flds said the court ruling is a landmark moment. >> i think it's going to serve as an example to them that maybe they can get out, maybe they can seek help. >> reporter: there have long been allegations that the police in flds community have actively

worked to stop other parents in the community from leaving with their children. now the arizona attorney general said he's conducting a criminal investigation of that police department. >> i'm extremely outraged and i think it's the biggest injustice i know that's going on in my state. >> reporter: the cops in the marshall's office never talked to reporters, but the attorney representing them sent us an e-mail saying in part, that there has been no proof or evidence of any type of wrong doink whatsoever. ruby jessup says there's a lot of wrongdoing to go around led by warren jeffs who continues to utter bizarre revelations. >> he did not want any child to be born in this wicked generation. >> reporter: warren jeffs said that from jail? >> yes. >> reporter: so you were not allowed to have relations with your husband any more for the last few months? >> the last year. >> reporter: the last year? >> the last year. the only relations you could have with your husband is a hand shake and no longer than three

seconds. >> a three-second hand shake? >> uh-huh. >> ruby and her children are currently living in her sister's house in phoenix. she has no job, no high school diploma, and little knowledge of the outside world, but she said there's no turning back. >> i want to raise my kids. i want to be free. be able to make my own choices, to be happy. >> reporter: are you happy today? >> i am. i am very happy. >> reporter: gary tuchman, cnn, phoenix. >> tom sheehan is a sheriff in arizona where many of the l flds members live. ruby was able to get her kids with help from your office. are more people from that community reaching out for help from your office or the attorney general's office? >> we believe they will, anderson. what has happened is we were able to show that we are helping those that want to get out of that community and help ruby get her children away from that culture. and i think that's going to be opening the doors for allowing others to get out of the community. >> one of the things that has always amazed me about the flds is that this area continues to

live really under its own rules, under its own law or at least tries to. your department started patrolling the area, and what are the biggest challenges that you have faced though? >> well, the biggest challenge that we have is called the marshall's office, and the city police department. colorado city is an incorporated city, have their own city government, police department, fire department, and municipal services. and the marshal's office or city police department, as i call it so we don't get confused are nothing but an extension of the security service for the church. when people want to leave the church and get away from that type of living, they try to stop them. they hide them out, and they conspire with the elders in the church to keep this from happening. >> how has this been sort of allowed to continue in 2013? i think that's what surprises a lot of people on the outside. >> in arizona, it's unique, or maybe it's not unique to other states. there's no really mechanism available to decertify or do away with the entire police

department. now, many of the officers that have worked there have been decertified over the years and they have lost their ability to continue to be law enforcement officers. they have been involved with warren jeffs, communicating with him when he was on the run and on the ten most wanted list for the fbi. they refused to testify before a grand jury. they have been involved themselves in child molestation. so the attorney general is assisting us with a grant to provide extra law enforcement up there. it's been a great help, and we're making probably the most advancement that we have in that area in the last couple years, and have been in 100 years. >> it's obviously very isolated in many ways and people don't watch television, but if some members of the community are able to see or hear this segment tonight, what would you say to them. >> they can contact the mojave county sheriff's office at any time, and we'll make sure they're protected from the

people in the church, the marshal's office, and we're there to provide them fair and unbiased law enforcement services. >> i appreciate you being with us. thank you. >> thank you, anderson. >> still ahead, if you're not sick right now, chances are that you know somebody who is or has been. a new strain of norovirus, often called the stomach flu, is going around. washing your hands isn't enough to avoid it. dr. sanjay gupta tells us what works. plus, dramatic video of a rescue involving a baby, a duffel bag, and rising floodwaters.

we all know what the flu is. this flu season has been nasty, but there's something else going around making a lot of people sick. it's called norovirus. it's very contagious, and unlike the flu that is a respiratory illness, norovivus without getting too graphic, a stomach thing. some people call it food poisons or stomach bug. let's just say if you get the norovirus, you'll spend some time in the bathroom. a new strain called the sydney strain is sweeping across the united states. the cdc says that you can get it from another person, contaminated food or water just by touching contaminated surfaces. to find out more now, we've got 360 dr. sanjay gupta. what exactly is norovirus and how do you know if you have if or another kind of a stomach bug? >> there are all sorts of different viruses, the flu virus. this is another category of viruses. you don't always know if you have this versus another form of flu, but i can tell you as you are sort of alluding to, it

comes on suddenly and you really get quite sick from this. it usually lasts two to three days. if you have a mild thing where it lasts overnight, it's probably not the norovirus. about 20 million people, it's estimated, will get this in the united states alone. it's something that a lot of people are going to experience. i think even secretary of state, former secretary of state clinton, when we talk about her fainting episode, a stomach bug, she had been sick for a couple of days, they speculated it was norovirus as well. it's quite common. >> how easily is it spread? i read something from the cdc saying it can live on surfaces for up to a couple weeks? >> it is really contagious and it is ubiquitous. it is everywhere. it can live on surfaces and clothes and food. it's something that's really all around us. it is definitely hard to protect yourself. people talk about washing your hands, which we talk about all the time. but also think about your food, think about your laundry, think about surfaces around you, making sure that you are cleaning those things as well.

i'll give you one thing i learned. hand washing dishes, for example, may not be good enough because you can't get the water hot enough to kill this virus. eating off dishes that have been washed in a dishwasher with hot water, same thing with the laundry. that gives you an idea of how tough this virus is to kill. >> do hand sanitizers work to kill it? >> they don't work really well. it's interesting because they work pretty well against the flu virus, the h3n2 we were talking about before, but with this, it seems somewhat resistant and you really have to scrub your hands quite hard. you and i talked about singing "happy birthday" twice in your head while you are washing your hands, be but soap and water seems the best bet, but again, the idea of touching things and then your nose and your mouth. we all do this subconsciously a couple hundred times a day. you have to pay more attention to that because that's one of the more common ways to get sick. >> if you do come down with it or think you come down with it, what do you do? is there treatment, do you take antibiotics? >> that's the thing.

antibiotics are for bacterial infections. this is a viral infection. there are antibiotics out there. but the big problem with this is people become dehydrated. so as hard as it is, you have to keep as much fluids down as you can. this is particularly true for the elderly. there are hundreds of people who die from this every year, and usually it's from dehydration. unfortunately, there's no particular medication. try to get as many fluids down as you can and stay home so you're not infecting other people. one thing i'll point out, you start to become contagious before you get sick. so you have to assume you're always potentially contagious and act accordingly. >> you, now that we've completely freaked people out, i guess the good thing is it is opt lasts two or three days. >> it lasts two or three days and again, you'll sort of know it if you have it, but try not to infect others. and keep the fluids down. that is your best bet. >> thank you. >> you got it, anderson. >> let's get you caught up on some of the other stories we're following.

isha is back. a >> the boy scouts of america say they're considering changing their long-standing policy of banning openly gay scouts and leaders. this comes after nationwide protests that includes hundreds of eagle scouts mailing back their medals. the family of a man says that he tried to complete a flip, but the out of control sled sped toward the audience and his grandfather says that the prognosis is not good. the first night of deadly riots in egypt. hundreds of people flooding the streets. violating the government's curfew put in place after dozens died in previous nights of violence. at least one person was killed today. a pair of australian radio jocks who prank called the duchess of cambridge are now off the air for good. they were initially suspended after the nurse who answered the

call committed suicide. and anderson, an incredible rescue caught on tape. this is the scene in queensland, australia, where rescuers needed to airlift two women and a baby out of a truck that was stuck in rising floodwater. the baby went first. the safest way to get it into the chopper, as you see there, was in a bag. >> oh, my god. >> yeah, i know. >> wow! >> wow, all three made it to safety, but the child was seriously freaked out, as you would imagine. >> of course. that's great that they got them all to safety, though. >> yeah. time now for a shoutout. like many kids his age, 2 1/2-year-old zach loves dinosaurs, so his parents took him to a park exhibit they thought he might enjoy. they didn't expect this. >> what is that? >> run, zach. >> what is it? >> are you scared? >> run!

run! >> oh. >> poor little thing. look at him go. >> hee keeps on running. >> he's like, i didn't sign up for this. poor baby. >> poor kid. that's not nice. all right. coming up, isha, a case of marijuana with a very unlikely perp. the ridiculist is next. ordinary rubs don't always work on my arthritis.

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time now for the ridiculist. tonight it seems some evidence that been disappearing from a police storage facility in wichita, kansas. not just any evidence though. here's the public information officer for the wichita police department. >> we had evidence clerks doing their job and noticed that one of the packages had been gotten into. and that particular package had some marijuana evidence in there. >> someone is stealing marijuana from an evidence storage facility. luckily, the police have an idea of who's behind it. >> we do have a sketch artist that came. and did a rendering of who we believe is responsible for the marijuana heist. we're currently looking for something that resembles a mouse like this. >> lieutenant doug nolte, aka, the greatest public information officer in the world. i love the sketch artist rendering of the suspect, although that mouse looks pretty alert, and if i have watched anything from watching dan